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STEVENSON  AT 

MANASQUAN 

CHARLOTTE  EATON 


!     I     I     i' 

1 1 1't' 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


"\ 


The  Little  Bookfellow  Series 


Stevenson  at  iManasquan 


Other  Titles  in  this  series: 
EsTRAYS.     Poems    by    Thomas    Kennedy,    George 

Seymour,  Vincent  Starrett,  and  Basil  Thompson. 
William  De  Morgan,  a  Post- Victorian  Realist, 

by  Flora  Warren  Seymour. 
Lyrics,  by  Laura  Blackburn. 


Pen  and  Ink  Sketch  op  Eobep.t  Loms  Stevenson,  by 

Wyatt  Eaton 

Kind  permission  of  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure 


Stevenson  at  Manasqnan 


By 

Charlotte  Eaton 

With  a  Note  on  the  Fate  of  the  Yacht 
"Casco"  by  Francis  Dicliie  and  Six  Portraits 
from  Stevenson  by  George  Steele  Seymour 


CHICAGO 

THE  BOOKFELLOWS 

1921 


Three  hundred  copies  of  this  book  by  Charlotte  Eaton, 
Bool-fellow  No.  550,  Francis  Dickie,  Bookfelloiv  No.  716, 
and  George  Steele  Seymour,  Bookfelloio  No.  1,  have  been 
printed.  Mrs.  Eaton's  memoir  is  an  elaboration  of  one 
previously  published  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  Co.  of  New 
York  under  the  title  "A  Last  Memory  of  Bobert  Louis 
Stevenson" ;  Mr.  Dickie's  notes  have  appeared  in  the 
New  York  World,  and  Mr.  Seymour's  "Portraits"  have 
appeared  in  "Contemporary  Verse"  and  "The  Star"  of 
San  Francisco. 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
Flora  Warren  Seymour 


THE  TORCH    PRESS 

CEDAR    RAPIDS 

IOWA 


E  iH  ^ 


STEVENSON  AT  MANASQUAN 

Wlien  I  came  face  to  face  with  Robert  Louis 
Steveuson  it  was  the  realization  of  one  of  my 
most  cherished  dreams. 

This  was  at  Manasquan,  a  village  on  the  New 
Jersey  coast,  where  he  had  come  to  make  a  fare- 
well visit  to  his  old  friend  Will  Low,  the  artist. 
Mr.  Low  had  taken  a  cottage  there  that  summer 
while  working  on  his  series  of  Lamia  drawings 
for  Lippincott  's,  and  Stevenson,  hearing  that  we 
were  on  the  other  side  of  the  river,  sent  word 
that  he  would  come  to  see  us  on  the  morrow. 

"Stevenson  is  coming,"  was  announced  at  the 
breakfast-table  as  calmly  as  though  it  were  a 
daily  occurrence. 

Steve nso-n  coming  to  Manasquan! 

I  was  in  my  'teens,  was  an  enthusiastic  student 
of  poetry  and  mj- thology,  and  Stevenson  was  my 
hero  of  romance.  Was  it  any  wonder  the  intel- 
ligence excited  me? 

My  husband,  the  late  Wyatt  Eaton,  and  Stev- 
enson, were  friends  in  their  student  days  abroad, 
and  it  was  in  honor  of  those  early  days  that  I 
was  to  clasp  the  hand  of  my  favorite  author. 

It  was  in  the  mazes  of  a  contradance  at  Bar- 
bizon,  in  the  picturesque  setting  of  a  barn  lighted 

5 


by  candles,  that  their  first  meeting  took  place, 
where  Mr.  Eaton,  though  still  a  student  in  the 
schools  of  Paris,  had  taken  a  studio  to  be  near 
Jean  Francois  Millet,  and  hither  Stevenson  had 
come,  with  his  cousin,  known  as  "Talking  Bob," 
to  take  part  in  the  harvest  festivities  among  the 
peasants. 

These  were  the  halcyon  days  at  Barbizon, 
when  Millet  tramped  the  fields  and  the  favorite 
haunts  of  Rousseau  and  Corot  could  be  followed 
up  through  the  Forest  of  Fontainebleau,  before 
Barbizon  had  become  a  resort  for  holiday  mak- 
ers, or  the  term  "Barbizon  School"  had  been 
thought  of. 

Now,  of  all  places  in  the  world,  the  quaint 
little  Sanborn  Cottage  on  the  river-bank,  where 
we  were  stopping,  seemed  to  me  the  spot  best 
suited  for  a  first  meeting  with  Stevenson.  The 
Sanborns  were  very  little  on  the  estate  and  the 
place  had  a  neglected  look.  Indeed,  more  than 
that,  one  might  easily  have  taken  it  for  a  haunted 
or  abandoned  place  —  with  its  garden  choked 
with  weeds,  and  its  window-shutters  flaunting 
old  spider-webs  to  the  breeze. 

It  was,  of  course,  the  fanciful,  adventure-lov- 
ing Stevenson  that  I  looked  forward  to  seeing, 
and  I  was  not  disappointed;  and  while  others 
spoke  of  the  flight  of  time  with  its  inevitable 
changes,  I  felt  sure  that,  to  me,  he  would  be  just 
Stevenson  who  wrote  the  things  over  which  I 
had  burned  the  midnight  oil. 

He  came  promptly  at  the  hour  fixed,  appear- 
ing on  the  threshold  as  frail  and  distinguished- 

6 


looking  as  a  portrait  by  Velasquez.  He  had 
walked  across  the  mile-long  bridge  connecting 
Brielle  and  Manasqnan,  ahead  of  the  others,  for 
the  bracer  he  always  needed  before  joining  even 
a  small  company. 

Shall  I  ever  forget  the  sensation  of  delight 
that  thrilled  me,  as  he  entered  the  room  —  tall, 
emaciated,  yet  radiant,  his  straight,  glossy  hair 
so  long  that  it  lay  upon  the  collar  of  his  coat, 
throwing  into  bold  relief  his  long  neck  and  keen- 
ly sensitive  face  ? 

His  hands  were  of  the  psychic  order,  and  were 
of  marble  whiteness,  save  the  thumb  and  first 
finger  of  the  right  hand,  that  were  stained  from 
,  constant  cigarette  rolling  —  for  he  was  an  in- 
veterate smoker  —  and  he  had  the  longest  fingers 
I  have  ever  seen  on  a  human  being ;  they  were,  in 
fact,  part  of  his  general  appearance  of  lankiness, 
that  would  have  been  uncanny,  but  for  the 
geniality  and  sense  of  hien  etre  that  he  gave  off. 
His  voice,  low  in  tone,  had  an  endearing  quality 
in  it,  that  was  almost  like  a  caress.  He  never 
made  use  of  vernacularism  and  was  without  the 
slightest  Scotch  accent;  on  the  contrary,  he 
spoke  his  English  like  a  world  citizen,  speaking 
a  universal  tongue,  and  always  looked  directly 
at  the  person  spoken  to. 

I  have  since  heard  one  who  knew  him  (and 
they  are  becoming  scarce  now)  call  him  the  man 
of  good  manners,  or  "the  mannerly  Stevenson," 
and  this  is  the  term  needed  to  complete  my  first 
impression,  for  more  than  the  traveller,  the 
scholar  or  the  author,  it  was  the  marmerly  Stev- 

7 


ensooi  that  appeared  in  our  midst  that  day.  He 
moved  about  the  room  to  a  ripple  of  repartee 
that  was  contagious,  putting  everj^  one  on  his 
mettle  —  in  fact,  his  presence  was  a  challenge 
to  a  jeu  d' esprit  on  every  hand.  How  self-pos- 
sessed he  was,  how  spiritual!  his  face  glowing 
with  memories  of  other  days. 

He  had  just  come  from  Saranac,  Saranac-in- 
the-Adirondacks,  that  had  failed  to  yield  him 
the  elixir  of  life  he  was  seeking,  w^here  he  had 
spent  a  winter  of  such  solitude  as  even  his  cour- 
ageous wife  was  unable  to  endure. 

His  good  spirits  were  doubtless  on  the  rebound 
after  good  work  accomplished,  for  there,  in  "his 
hat-box  on  the  hill, ' '  as  he  called  his  quarters  at 
Baker's,  were  written  his  "Christmas  Sermons," 
"The  Lantern  Bearer,"  and  the  opening  chap- 
ters of  "The  Master  of  Ballantrae."  In  this 
"very  decent  house"  he  would  talk  old  Mr. 
Baker  to  sleep  on  stormy  nights,  and  the  good 
old  farmer,  never  suspecting  that  Stevenson  was 
"anybody  in  particular,"  snored  his  responses 
to  those  flights  in  fact  and  fancy  for  which 
there  are  those  who  would  have  given  hundreds 
of  dollars  to  have  been  in  the  old  farmer's  place. 
But  it  was  the  very  carelessness  of  Mr.  Baker 
that  helped  along  the  talking  spell.  This  is  often 
the  case  with  authors ;  they  will  pour  out  their 
precious  knowledge  into  the  ears  of  some  incon- 
sequential person,  a  tramp  as  likely  as  not, 
picked  up  by  the  way;  the  non-critical  attitude 
of  the  illiterate  seems  to  help  the  thinker  in 
forming  a  sequence  of  ideas;  this  explains,  too, 

8 


why  the  artist  values  the  lay  criticism  —  it  hits 
directly  at  any  false  note  in  a  picture,  thus  sav- 
ing the  painter  much  unnecessary  delay. 

Sometimes  Dr.  Trudeau,  also  an  exile  of  the 
mountains,  would  drop  in  professionally  on 
these  storaiy  evenings  and  would  stay  until  about 
midnight,  having  entirely  forgotten  the  nature 
of  his  visit.  Stevenson  had  this  faculty  of  mak- 
ing friends  of  those  who  served  him.  To  the 
restaurant  keeper  of  Monterey,  Jules  Simoneau, 
who  trusted  him  when  he  was  penniless  and 
unknown,  he  presented  a  set  of  his  books,  leath- 
er-boundy  each  volume  autographed,  and  this 
worthy  man  has  since  refused  a  thousand  dollars 
for  the  set.  "Well,"  he  explained,  "I  do  not 
need  the  money,  and  I  value  the  gift  for  itself. ' ' 
I  think  this  friend  of  Stevenson's  must  feel  like 
Father  Tabb  in  the  library  of  his  friend  when 
he  said : 

"To  see,  when  he  is  dead, 
The  many  books  he  read. 
And  then  again,  to  note 
The  many  books  he  wrote; 
How  some  got  in,  and  some  got  out. 
'Tis  very  strange  to  think  about. ' ' 

But  to  return  to  our  story. 

Stevenson's  Isle-of-the-blest  was  calling  to 
him,  and  hope  lay  that  way,  where  life  was  ele- 
mentary and  where  a  man  with  but  one  lung  to 
his  account  might  live  indefinitely.  Not  that 
he  feared  to  die.  Oh,  no!  It  takes  more  cour- 
age sometimes  to  live,  but  it  was  hard  to  give  up 

9 


at  forty,  when  one  just  begins  to  enter  into  the 
knowledge  of  one's  own  powers.  A  blind  lady 
once  said  to  me,  in  speaking  of  a  mutual  friend, 
"Wlien  Mr,  B.  comes,  I  feel  as  if  there  was  a 
sprite  in  the  room,"  and  this  is  the  way  I  felt 
about  Stevenson,  for  during  those  moments  of 
serious  discussion  when  most  people  are  tense, 
he  moved  actively  about,  and  his  philosophies 
were  humanized  by  his  warm,  brown  eyes  and 
merrj^  exclamations. 

Another  reason  for  the  sprite  feeling,  was  that 
he  was  consciously  living  in  the  past  that  day, 
and  each  face  was  like  reseeing  a  milestone  long 
passed,  on  some  half-forgotten  journey. 

It  was  this  sense  of  detachment  that,  more 
than  anything  else,  gave  us  the  feeling  that  he 
was  already  beyond  our  mortal  ken,  that  he  was 
living  at  once  in  the  visible  and  in  the  invisible, 
one  to  whom  the  passing  of  time  had  little  signifi- 
cance. I  think  this  is  true,  more  or  less,  of  all 
those  who  are  marked  for  a  brief  earthly  career. 

By  this  time  the  other  members  of  the  family 
had  arrived.  His  mother,  Lloyd  Osbourne,  and 
Mrs.  Strong,  his  step-children;  "Fanny,"  his 
wife,  was  in  California,  looking  after  some  prop- 
erty  interests  she  had  there,  and  provisioning 
the  yacht  chartered  for  the  voyage  to  the  South 
Seas.  In  all  his  enterprises  she  was  his  major- 
domo,  and  her  devotion  no  doubt  helped  to  pro- 
long his  life.  Their  mutual  agreement  on  all 
financial  matters  reminded  me  of  a  remark  made 
by  mine  host  at  a  country  inn,  who,  in  speaking 
of  his  wife,  said,  "She  is  my  very  best  invest- 

10 


ment,"  and  so  was  Mrs.  Stevenson  to  her  hus- 
band, Lewis,  for  so  the  family  called  him,  and 
never  Kobert  Louis.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
yoking  of  contrasts  is  an  important  part  in 
Nature's  economy  of  things.  Ella  Wheeler  Wil- 
cox said  to  me  that  she  owed  her  success  to 
Robert  —  her  husband  —  because  in  all  her  un- 
dertakings he  went  before  and  smoothed  the 
way;  but  Mr.  Wilcox's  version  of  the  case  is 
another  story.  "I  keep  an  eye  on  Ella,"  said 
he,  "to  prevent  her  from  giving  away  too  much 
money. ' ' 

Stevenson  was  now  seated  before  the  grate, 
the  flickering  light  from  the  wood  fire  illuminat- 
ing his  pale  face  to  transparency.  Now  and 
then  he  relapsed  into  silence,  gazing  into  the  fire 
with  the  rapt  look  of  one  who  sees  visions. 

"Are  you  seeing  a  Salamander,"  I  asked,  "or 
do  the  sparks  flying  upward  make  you  think  of 
the  golden  alchemy  of  Lescaris  ? '  '* 

"A  Salamander,"  he  replied,  smiling.  "Yes, 
a  carnivorous  fire-dweller  that  eats  up  man  and 
his  dreams  forever," 

"Gracious!  But  you  are  going  to  worse 
things  than  Salamanders,  the  Paua,t  they  will 
get  you,  if  you  don 't  watch  out. ' ' 

And  then,  suddenly  becoming  conscious  of  my 
temerity  in  interrupting  the  thread  of  his  reflec- 
tions, to  cover  my  embarrassment,  I  ran  upstairs 
for  my  birthday -book. 

*  Lescaris  was  a  Greek  shepherd  who  discovered  the 
secret  of  transmuting  the  baser  metals  to  fine  gold. 

t  Paua  —  Native  name  for  the  Tridacna  Gigus,  a  huge 
clam.  When  it  closes  on  any  one,  his  only  escape  is  by 
losing  the  limb. 

11 


An  autograph! 

Of  course.  And  he  wrote  it,  reading  out  the 
quotation  that  filled  in  part  of  the  space.  It 
was  one  of  Emerson 's  Kantisms,  something  about 
not  going  abroad,  unless  you  can  as  readily  stay 
at  home  (I  forget  the  exact  words).  It  was  de- 
cidedly malapropos  and  called  out  much  merri- 
ment. 

"Oh,  stay  at  home,  dear  Iieart,  and  rest; 
Home-keeping  hearts  are  happiest." 

Somebody  quoted,  to  which  another  replied: 

* '  Home-keeping  youth  have  ever  homely  wits. ' ' 

The  autograph  has  long  since  disappeared, 
but  how  often  have  I  thought  with  regret  of  the 
amused  expression  in  Stevenson's  eyes  at  the 
Salamander  fancy!  What  tales  of  witchery 
might  have  been  spun  from  those  themes  worthy 
of  the  magic  of  his  pen,  the  fire-dwelling  man- 
eater,  or  the  discovery  of  the  Greek  shepherd! 

Stevenson  was  amused  over  our  enthusiasm, 
and  the  eagerness  of  some  of  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  the  company  to  lionize  him. 

"And  what  do  you  consider  your  brightest 
failure  ? ' '  inquired  our  host. 

"  'Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde,'  "  he  replied, 
without  a  moment's  hesitation,  adding,  "that  is 
the  worst  thing  I  ever  wrote." 

"Yet  you  owe  it  to  your  dream-expedition," 
some  one  reminded  him. 

"The  dream-expedition?"  he  repeated.    "Yes, 

12 


that  was  perhaps  a  compensation  for  the  bad 
things. ' ' 

Benjamin  Franklin  has  said  that  success  ruins 
many  a  man.  The  success  of  "Trilby"  killed 
Du  Maurier,  and  many  authors  have  had  their 
heads  turned  for  far  less  than  the  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  furore  that  swept  the  country  at  that  time. 
But  the  Mannerly  Stevenson  carried  his  honors 
lightly.  Smiling  over  the  popularity  of  the 
"worst  thing  he  ever  wrote,"  he  revealed  that 
quality  in  his  own  nature  that  was  finer  than 
anything  he  had  given  to  print,  the  soul  whose 
indomitable  courage  could  bear  the  brunt  of  ad- 
verse circumstance,  and  even  contumely,  and 
hold  its  own  integrity,  becoming  a  law  unto  itself. 

Here  was  the  man  who  had  passed  himself  off 
as  one  of  a  group  of  steerage  passengers  on  that 
memorable  trip  across  the  Atlantic  on  his  way  to 
Monterej'  in  quest  of  the  woman  he  loved,  the 
man  whose  life  was  more  vital  in  its  love-motif 
than  any  of  his  own  romances,  the  man  who,  in 
spite  of  ill-health  and  uncertainty  of  means,  yet 
paid  the  price  for  his  heart's  desire. 

"See  here,"  said  a  lusty  fellow,  lurching  up 
to  him  one  day  on  deck.  "You  are  not  one  of 
us,  you  are  a  gentleman  in  hard  luck. ' ' 

"But,"  added  Stevenson  trimphantly,  in  tell- 
ing the  story,  "it  was  not  until  the  end  of  the 
voyage  that  they  found  me  out. ' ' 

This  points  the  saying  that  it  was  the  great 
washed  that  Stevenson  fought  shy  of,  and  not 
the  greater  unwashed,  with  whom  he  was  always 
on  the  friendliest  terms. 

13 


He  talked  delightfully,  too,  on  events  connect- 
ed with  his  journey  across  the  plains,  which  he 
made  in  an  emigrant  train,  associating  with 
Chinamen,  who  cooked  their  meals  on  board,  and 
slept  on  planks  let  down  from  the  side  of  the 
cars. 

"The  air  was  thick,"  said  he,  "and  an  Orien- 
tal thickness,  at  that." 

But  this  period  of  his  life  was  a  painful  sub- 
ject for  his  mother,  who  was  present,  and  some 
of  his  best  stories  were  omitted  on  her  account. 

He  told  us,  however,  about  being  nearly 
lynched  for  throwing  away  a  lighted  match  on 
the  prairie.  "And  all  the  fuss,"  said  he,  "be- 
fore I  was  made  aware  of  the  nature  of  my 
crime."  Both  his  mother  and  Sydney  Colvin 
had  done  their  best  to  make  him  accept  enough 
money,  as  a  loan,  to  make  this  trip  comfortable. 
But  he  had  refused.  He  was,  he  explained, 
' '  doing  that  which  neither  his  family  nor  friends 
could  approve,"  and  he  would  therefore  accept 
no  financial  aid. 

"Just  before  starting,"  said  he,  "being  in 
need  of  money,  I  called  at  the  Century  office, 
where  I  had  left  some  manuscript  with  the  re- 
quest for  an  early  decision,  but  was  politely 
shown  the  door." 

Consternation  seized  us  at  this  announcement, 
for  all  present  knew  the  editor  for  a  man  of 
sympathy  and  heart.  But  Stevenson  himself 
came  to  our  relief  with,  "But  Mr.  Gilder  was 
abroad  that  year." 

After  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 

14 


century,  it  might  not  come  amiss  to  recount  an- 
other little  incident  at  the  same  office. 

I  mentioned  one  day  to  Mr.  Gilder  that  some 
notes  by  Mr.  Eaton  written  during  his  last  ill- 
ness had  been  rejected.  "You  don't  mean  to 
tell  me  that  anything  by  Wyatt  was  rejected  at 
this  office,"  said  he,  and  going  into  an  inner 
room,  returned  in  a  few  minutes  with  a  goodly 
check.  "There,"  said  he,  as  he  put  it  in  my 
hand,  ' '  Send  in  the  notes  at  your  convenience. ' ' 

Stevenson  laughed  good-naturedly  over  the 
dilemmas  the  editors  of  western  papers  threw 
him  into,  by  their  tardiness  in  paying  space 
rates  for  the  stories  and  essays  that  now  rank 
among  his  finest  productions.  Indeed  one  won- 
ders whether  he  would  have  survived  the  hard- 
ships of  those  Monterey  days,  had  not  the  good 
Jules  Simoneau  found  him  "worth  saving,"  a 
circumstance  for  which  he  is  accorded  the  palm 
by  posterity  rather  than  for  the  flavor  of  his 
tamales. 

In  many  ways  it  is  given  to  the  humble  to  min- 
ister to  the  needs  of  the  great.  A  distinguished 
author  once  said  to  me:  "I  could  never  have 
arrived  without  the  help  of  my  poor  friends." 

As  Stevenson  went  from  reminiscence  to 
reminiscence,  we  felt  that  from  this  period  of 
his  vivid  obscurity  might  have  been  drawn  ma- 
terial for  some  of  his  most  stirring  romances, 
and  we  were  rewarded  as  good  listeners  by  the 
discover}^  of  that  which  he  thought  his  best  work, 
namely,  the  little  story  called  "Will  o'  the  Mill." 

"  Ah  ! "  exclaimed  Mr,  Sanborn,  his  eyes  beam- 

15 


ing,  '*if  you  live  to  be  as  old  as  Methuselah,  with 
all  the  world's  lore  at  your  finger-ends,  you 
could  never  improve  on  that  simple  little  story. ' ' 
We  teased  Stevenson  a  good  deal  on  the  huge- 
ness of  his  royalties  on  "Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde,"  which,  besides  having  had  what  the  pub- 
lishers call  a  "run,"  was  bringing  in  a  second 
goodly  harvest  from  its  dramatization,  by  which 
his  voyage  to  the  South  Seas  had  become  a  real- 
ity. 

Remembering  his  remark  that  his  idea  of  Pur- 
gatory was  a  perpetual  high  wind,  I  asked  him : 
' '  "Why  have  you  chosen  an  island  for  your  future 
habitat;  or,  if  an  island,  why  not  Nevis  in  the 
West  Indies,  where  one  is  in  the  perpetual  dol- 
drums, so  to  speak?"  "There  will  be  no  more 
wind  on  Samoa  than  just  enough  to  turn  the 
page  of  the  book  one  is  reading,"  he  replied; 
and  windless  Nevis  was  British,  you  see,  and  his 
first  necessity  was  to  get  away  where  nobody 
reads.  Like  Jubal,  son  of  Lamech,  who  felt 
himself  hemmed  in  by  hearing  his  songs  repeat- 
ed in  a  land  where  everybody  sung,  so  he  was 
shadowed  by  the  Jekyll  and  Hyde  mania  in  a 
land  where  everybody  read. 

The  very  essence  of  his  isolation  is  felt  in  a 
playful  little  fling  at  a  Mr.  Nerli,  an  artist,  who 
went  out  there  to  paint  his  portrait,  as  well  as 
the  boredom  everyone  experiences  in  sitting  to 
a  painter: 

"Did  ever  mortal  man  hear  tell,  of  sae  singular  a  ferlie, 
Of  the  coming  to  Apia  here,  of  the  painter,  Mr.  Nerli? 

16 


He  came;  and  O  for  a  human  found,  of  a'  he  was  the 

pearlie, 
The  pearl  of  a'  the  painter  folk,  was  surely  Mr.  Nerli. 
He  took  a  thraw  to  paint  mysel';   he  painted  late  and 

early ; 

0  now!  the  mony  a  yawn  I've  yawned  in  the  beard  of 

Mr,   Nerli. 
Whiles  I  would  sleep,  an'  whiles  would  wake,  an'  whiles 
was  uiair  than  surly, 

1  wondered  sair,  as  I  sat  there,  forninst  the  eyes  of  Nerli. 
O  will  he  paint  me  the  way  I  want,  as  bonnie  as  a  girlie? 
Or  will  he  paint  me  an  ugly  type,  and  be  damned  to  Mr. 

Nerli ! 
But  still  and  on,  and  whiche  'er  it  is,  he  is  a  Canty  Kerlie, 
The   Lord   proteck    the    back    and    neck   of   honest    Mr. 

Nerli. ' ' 

Which  shows  that  he  was  not  altogether  free 
from  bothers  even  after  reaching  his  "port  o' 
dreams"  in  running  away  from  Purgatorial 
winds,  only  to  be  held  up  by  a  paint-brush! 
Also,  as  most  of  us  when  excited  fall  back  upon 
our  early  idiom,  so  Stevenson,  in  jest  or  lyric 
mood,  drifted  into  the  dialect  of  his  fathers. 

We  found,  much  to  our  surprise,  that  Steven- 
son knew  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  San- 
bom  estate,  and  told  us  of  his  trespassings  — 
in  their  absence  —  in  search  of  fresh  eggs  for 
his  breakfast,  having  obsei*ved  that  the  hens  had 
formed  nomadic  habits,  lajing  in  the  wood-pile 
and  in  odd  corners  all  over  the  grounds.  This 
was  during  a  former  visit  when  he  stayed  at 
Wainwi'ight 's,  a  landmark  that  has  since  been 
wiped  out  by  fire. 

"One  day,  as  I  walked  by,"  said  he  —  mean- 
ing the  Sanborn  place  —  "I  heard  a  hen  cackling 

17 


in  that  triumphant  way  that  left  no  doubt  as  to 
her  having  performed  her  duty  to  the  species. 
I  vaulted  the  fence  for  that  particular  egg  and 
found  it,  still  warm,  with  others,  on  its  bed  of 
soft  chips.  After  that,  I  had  an  object  in  my 
long,  solitary  walks.  New  laid  eggs  for  all  occa- 
sions! And  why  not,"  he  asked  merrily,  "see- 
ing there  was  no  other  proprietor  than  Chan- 
ticleer Peter,  who  had  been  the  victim  of  neglect 
so  long  that  he  would  crow  me  a  welcome,  and 
in  time  became  so  tame  that  he  would  spring 
on  my  knee  and  eat  crumbs  from  my  fingers  ? ' ' 

The  Sanborns  were  in  Europe  that  year  and, 
all  things  considered,  is  it  any  wonder  that  he 
took  the  place  for  being  abandoned  ? 

"Nothing  but  my  instinct  for  the  preservation 
of  property  kept  me  from  smashing  all  the  win- 
dows for  exercise, ' '  said  he. 

"I  am  glad  thee  was  good  to  Peter,"  said 
Mrs.  Sanborn.  Her  extinct  brood  was  a  pain 
still  rankling  in  her  bosom.  She  found  Peter 
frozen  stiff  on  the  bough  on  which  he  was  roost- 
ing, after  his  hens  had  disappeared  by  methods 
too  elemental  to  explain. 

They  had  left  no  servants  in  charge,  and 
neighbors  there  were  none  to  restrain  the  attacks 
of  marauders,  and  they  were  prize  leghorns,  too. 
She  almost  wailed. 

What  a  shame ! 

Well  might  all  bachelors  who  are  threatened 
with  a  wintry  solitude  take  warning  by  unhappy 
Peter. 

But  he  is  not  without  the  honor  due  to  mar- 

18 


tyrdom  —  is  Peter,  for  Mrs.  Sanborn  had  him 
stuffed,  and  presented  him  to  "Fanny,"  who 
took  him  to  California,  where  he  survived  the 
great  San  Francisco  earthquake. 

"He  must  have  been  our  mascot,"  said  Lloyd 
Osbourne  to  me  long  after,  "for  the  fire  that 
followed  the  earthquake  came  just  as  far  as  the 
gate  and  no  farther." 

Since  the  cup  that  cheers  is  not  customary  in 
Quaker  homes  our  hostess  proposed  an  egg-nog 
by  way  of  afternoon  collation  and  all  entered 
with  zest  into  the  mixing  of  the  decoction.  One 
brought  the  eggs,  another  the  sugar-bowl,  while 
our  host  went  to  the  cellar  for  that  brand  of 
John  Barleycorn  that  transmutes  every  beverage 
to  a  toast. 

Now,  while  Stevenson  came  to  regard  new- 
laid  eggs  as  the  natural  manna  of  the  desert,  he 
had  his  doubts  as  to  the  feasibility  of  egg-nog, 
seeing  that  milk  is  a  necessary  constituent.  He 
did  not  know,  you  see,  that  a  little  white  Alder- 
ney  cow  was  chewing  the  cud  of  salt-meadow 
grasses  in  the  woods  nearby,  and,  even  as  he 
doubted,  Mrs.  Sanborn  and  her  Ganymedes  had 
brought  in  a  jug  of  the  white  fluid,  topped  with 
a  froth  like  sea-foam. 

"It's  nectar  for  the  gods  on  Olympus,"  said 
I  —  meaning  the  milk. 

"True  Ambrosia  of  the  meadows,"  agreed 
Mrs.  Sanborn. 

"Well,  this  is  Elysium,  and  we  are  the  gods 
to-day. ' ' 

Elysium-on-Manasquan. 

19 


"To  be  more  exact,"  said  Stevenson,  "it 
should  be  Argos ;  it  was  there  they  celebrated  the 
cow,  as  we  are  now  celebrating " 

"Tidy,"  said  Mrs.   Sanborn. 

"lo,"  corrected  Stevenson,  waving  his  fork, 
for  he,  too,  was  helping  to  beat  the  eggs : 

* '  Argos-on-Manasquan. ' ' 

He  lingered  over  the  name  Manasquan  as 
though  he  enjoyed  saying  it. 

"The  first  thing  that  impressed  me  in  travel- 
ling in  America,"  said  he,  "was  your  Indian 
names  for  towns  and  rivers,  Temiscami, 
Coghnawaga,  Ticonderoga,  the  very  sound  of 
them  thrills  one  with  romantic  fancies.  Wlij'^  do 
you  not  revive  more  of  these  charming  Indian 
names?" 

"We  are  too  young  yet  to  appreciate  our 
legendary  wealth,"  said  Mr.  Sanborn,  with  an 
emphasis  on  the  "legendary." 

"Qui  s' excuse,  s'acc^ise,"  reminded  Mrs.  Low, 
who  was  a  French  woman. 

"Quite  right,"  assented  Mr.  Sanborn,  "it  is 
not  precedent  we  lack,  but  valuations." 

' '  To  return  to  Argos, ' '  said  Mrs.  Sanborn  — 
the  peace-maker  —  "I  always  feel  in  the  presence 
of  a  divine  mj^stery  when  I  milk  Tidy.  No  one 
could  be  guilty  of  a  frivolous  thing  before  the 
calm  eye  of  that  little  cow." 

Mrs.  Sanborn  possessed  the  reverent  spirit  of 
the  pre-Raphaelites  which  burned  modestly  in 
its  Quaker  shiine  or  flared  up  like  lightning  as 
occasion  required ;  and  she  delighted  in  the  deifi- 


20 


cation  of  her  little  cow.  And  why  not?  Had 
not  Tidy 's  worshipped  ancestors  nourished  kings 
of  antiquity,  and  given  idols  to  their  temples, 
and  stood  she  not  to-day  as  perfect  a  symbol 
of  maternity? 

I  do  not  now  remember  whether  it  was  re- 
ferring to  Samoa  as  Stevenson's  "port  o' 
dreams"  that  brought  up  the  discussion  of 
dreams.  To  some  one  who  asked  him  if  he  be- 
lieved that  dreams  came  true,  he  replied,  "Cer- 
tainly, they  are  just  as  real  as  anything  else." 

* '  Well,  it 's  what  one  believes  that  counts,  isn  't 
it,  and 'one  can  form  any  theory  in  a  world  where 
dreams  are  as  real  as  other  things,  and  is  it  the 
same  with  ideals?"  somebody  ventured. 

"Ideals,"  said  Stevenson,  "are  apt  to  stay 
by  you  when  material  things  have  taken  the 
proverbial  wings,  and  are  assets  quite  as  en- 
during as  stone  fences. ' ' 

"And  was  it  a  want  of  faith  in  the  dur- 
ability of  stone  fences,  or  ignorance  of  their 
dream-assets,  that  accounts  for  the  way  that 
Cato  and  Demosthenes  solved  their  problems?" 
was  the  next  question,  but  as  this  high  strain 
was  interrupted  by  more  frivolity,  my  thoughts 
again  reverted  to  the  solidity  of  Stevenson's 
dreams,  that  now  furnished  his  inquiring  soul 
with  new  fields  for  exploitation,  as  well  as  a 
dominant  interest  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  his 
earthly  span. 

He  regretted  leaving  the  haunts  of  man,  he 
told  us,   particularly  the  separation   from   his 


21 


friends,  which  was  satisfactory,  coining,  as  it 
did,  from  the  man  who  coined  the  truism  that 
the  way  to  have  a  friend  is  to  be  one. 

But  tliis  was  his  fighting  chance,  "and  a 
fellow  has  to  die  fighting,  you  know."  What 
was  civilization  anywaj^  to  one  who  needed  only 
sunshine  and  negligee?  Thus  in  no  other  than 
a  tone  of  pleasantry  did  he  refer  to  his  condition, 
and  never  have  I  seen  a  face  or  heard  a  voice  so 
exempt  from  bitterness.  He  told  me,  in  fact, 
that  he  was  unable  to  breathe  in  a  room  with 
more  than  four  people  in  it  at  a  time.  This 
sounds  like  an  exaggeration,  or  one  of  the  vagar- 
ies of  the  sick,  yet  things  that  seem  trifles  to  the 
well,  can  be  tragic  to  the  nervous  sufferer.  Mrs. 
Low  has  told  me  that  at  a  dinner  of  only  five  or 
six  covers  Stevenson  would  frequently  get  up 
and  throw  open  a  window  to  breathe  in  enough 
ozone  to  enable  him  to  get  through  the  evening. 

He  was  embarking  to  the  lure  of  soft  airs  and 
long,  subliminal  solitudes,  accepting  gracefully 
the  one  hope  held  out,  when  the  crowded  habita- 
tions of  cities  had  become  a  torture.  We  felt  the 
pity  of  the  enforced  exile  of  so  companionable  a 
spirit,  but  we  did  not  voice  it,  feeling  con- 
strained to  live  up  to  the  standard  of  cheerful- 
ness he  had  so  valiantly  set  for  us. 

Mr.  Eaton,  who  boasted  that,  in  him,  a  good 
sea  captain  had  been  spoiled  to  make  a  bad  paint- 
er, encouraged  Stevenson  to  talk  freely  of  his 
plans,  and  he  dwelt  at  some  length  on  the  beauty 
and  seaworthiness  of  the  yacht  Casco,  that  had 
been  chartered  for  the  voyage.     This  sea  theme 

22 


led,  of  course,  to  the  inevitable  fish  stories,  and 
after  some  mythological  whale  had  been  swal- 
lowed by  some  non-Biblical  Jonah,  I  remarked, 
in  the  lull  that  followed,  ''Maybe  the  waters  of 
the  South  Seas  will  yield  you  up  a  heroine." 

A  laugh  went  around  at  this,  for  some  present 
thought  I  had  said  a  "herring."  But  Steven- 
son had  no  doubt  as  to  my  meaning.  "I  am 
always  helpless,"  said  he,  "when  I  try  to  de- 
scribe a  woman;  but  then,"  he  added,  brightly, 
"how  should  I  hope  to  understand  a  woman, 
when  God,  who  made  her,  cannot?"  As  straws 
show  how  the  wind  blows,  so  this  little  joke 
throws  light  on  Stevenson's  state  of  mind  toward 
womankind  in  general.  During  this  heroine 
discussion,  he  remarked  that  he  was  always  "un- 
conscionably bored"  by  the  conversation  of 
young  girls.  He  had  no  desire,  it  seems,  to 
mould  the  young  idea  to  his  taste,  as  Horace, 
when  he  said : 

' '  Place  me  where  the  worhl  is  not  habitable, 
Where  the  Day-God's  Chariot  too  near  approaches, 
Yet  will  I  love  Lalage,  see  her  sweet  smile, 
Hear  her  sweet  prattle." 

Even  as  a  school-boy  he  was  unable  to  mingle 
with  lads  of  his  own  age.  This,  doubtless,  is 
another  of  the  precocities  of  the  early-doomed, 
who  feel  that  every  moment  of  life  they  have 
must  be  lived  to  the  full.  A  well-known  artist, 
who  was  suffering  with  tuberculosis,  once  said  to 
me,  in  describing  his  working  hours  at  the 
studio,     "I   must   make   every  touch   tell,   and 

23 


ever}'-  moment  count."  So  to  Stevenson  the 
rounded  out  sj^mpathies  of  maturity  were  more 
attractive  than  the  sweet  prattle  of  girlhood, 
because,  like  the  painter,  with  his  paint,  he, 
with  his  life,  had  to  make  every  moment  counL 
This,  of  course,  explains  his  having  chosen  a 
woman  so  much  older  than  himself  as  a  life-com- 
panion; a  woman  in  whom  he  could  find  a  re- 
sponse on  his  own  mental  plane. 

In  the  following  little  poem,  which  is  perhaps 
his  best  known  tribute  to  his  wife,  he  embodies 
in  cameo  clearness  my  own  early  impression  of 
the  intrinsic  qualities  of  her  character: 

' '  Trusty,  dusky,  vivid  true, 

With  eyes  of  gold  and  bramble-devF, 

Steel-true  and  blade-straight, 
The   great  artificer 

Made  my  mate. 

Honor,  anger,  valor,  fire; 

A  love  that  life  could  never  tire; 

Death  quench  or  evil  stir, 
The  mighty  master 

Gave  to  her. 

Teacher,  tender,  comrade,  wife, 
A  fcUow-farer  true  through  life. 

Heart-whole  and  soul-free, 
The  august  father 

Gave  to  me." 

It  was  at  the  Lows'  Apartment  in  New  York 
that  I  first  met  Mrs.  Stevenson.  I  called  one 
afternoon  to  see  Mrs.  Low,  who  was  convalescing 
from  an  illness.     She  sent  word  that  she  would 

24 


be  able  to  see  me  in  half  an  hour,  and  I  was 
shown  into  the  living-room,  where,  meditating 
by  the  fire,  sat  Mrs.  Stevenson.  She  seemed 
exceedingly  picturesque  to  me,  in  a  rich  black 
satin  gown,  her  hair  tied  back  by  a  black  ribbon 
in  girlish  fashion  and  falling  in  three  ringlets 
down  her  back. 

She  told  me  stories  of  her  first  arrival  in  New 
York  that  were  as  amusing  as  some  of  Steven- 
son's prairie  experiences.  She  engaged  a  mes- 
senger-boy to  pioneer  her  through  the  great  stone 
jungle,  not  from  fear  of  pickpockets  or  the  like, 
but  to  Save  her  from  a  helplessly  lost  feeling  she 
always  had  when  alone  on  the  streets  of  a  strange 
city.  On  arriving,  she  went  directly  to  the  old 
St.  Stephen's  Hotel  on  University  Place  and 
Eleventh  Street,  registering  thus: 

"Mrs.  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  (wife  of  the 
author  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde)." 

To  those  of  the  friends  who  smiled  over  it, 
she  explained  that,  being  ill  at  the  time,  she  had 
a  horror  of  dying  unknown  in  a  hotel  room  and 
being  sent  to  the  morgue. 

I  replied  to  this  by  telling  her  how  my  mother, 
being  alone  at  a  large  London  hotel  for  a  night, 
insisted  on  having  one  of  the  chambermaids 
sleep  with  her,  no  doubt  from  the  same  sense  of 
hopeless  wandering  in  a  similar  Dffidalian  Laby- 
rinth. 

Years  after,  some  autograph  collector  hunted 
up  that  old  St.  Stephen's  register  and  cut  the 
name  from  the  page,  which  reminded  me  of  a 
little  story  I  once  told  Mrs.  Low. 

25 


As  a  boy  Mr,  Eaton  one  day  mounted  the  pul- 
pit of  the  church  in  the  little  village  of  Phillips- 
burg,  P.  Q.,  Canada,  where  he  was  born,  and 
made  a  drawing  on  one  of  the  fly-leaves  of  the 
Bible.  When  it  was  later  told  in  the  village 
that  he  had  exhibited  at  the  Paris  Salon,  some- 
one cut  the  leaf  from  the  Book  of  Books. 

When  one  starts  stoiy  telling  to  a  good  listen- 
er, little  incidents  dart  through  the  brain  that 
for  long  have  lain  dormant,  and  to  pass  the  time, 
I  told  Mrs.  Stevenson  that  on  the  day  Mr.  Eaton 
finished  his  portrait  of  President  Garfield  for  the 
Union  League  Club,  he  asked  the  newly  landed 
Celtic  maid  if  she  would  wash  his  brushes  for 
him  (an  office  that  he  generally  performed  for 
himself),  to  which  she  exclaimed  joyfully,  "To 
think  that  I  have  lived  to  see  the  day  that  I 
washed  the  brushes  that  painted  the  President 
of  the  United  States!" 

What  the  artist  regarded  as  an  added  chore 
to  her  already  full  labors,  was  to  her  willing 
hands  a  pride  and  an  honor.  It  may  be  a  truism 
that  a  rose  by  any  other  name  would  smell  as 
sweet,  but  there  certainly  seems  to  be  a  good 
deal  in  a  view-point.  In  looking  back,  I  know 
that  I  grasped,  that  day,  something  of  what  the 
later  years  proved  her  to  the  world,  for  I  read 
her  then,  as  a  highly  gifted  woman  who  had 
submerged  her  own  personality  in  the  greater 
gifts  and  personal  claims  of  her  invalid  husband 
and  in  a  recent  reading  of  her  Samoan  notes 
there  was  imparted  to  me,  by  means  too  subtle 
to  explain,  those  glimpses  that  insight  bestows, 

26 


Wyatt  Eaton  as  a  Student 
Photo  hy  Kurtz,  N.  Y. 


that  are  called  reading  between  the  lines  —  a 
realization  of  the  hardship  of  much  of  her  life 
in  the  South  Seas.  I  felt  distinctly  the  under- 
current of  troubled  restlessness  beneath  the  ap- 
parent good  time  of  an  unusual  environment. 

To  the  woman  who  loves  becoming  toilets  and 
the  vivacity  and  movement  of  life  in  literary 
and  social  centres,  and  who,  moreover,  possesses 
the  useful  hands  and  right  instincts  both  in  ar- 
tistic and  domestic  relationships,  the  long  so- 
journs in  desolate  places,  the  doing  with  make- 
shifts and  the  like  that  these  entail,  are  a  real 
deprivation,  and  a  persistent  irritation  that  calls 
for  the  counteraction  of  an  exceptional  degree  of 
poise  and  self-mastery. 

Nothing,  in  short,  emphasizes  this  sense  of  her 
isolation,  to  my  mind,  so  strongly  as  Stevenson 
himself  in  describing  her  quarters  on  board  the 
schooner  Equator,  as  a  "  beetle-haunted  most  un- 
womanly bower,"  and  this  simultaneously  with 
the  reminder  that  it  will  be  long  before  her 
eyes  behold  again  the  familiar  scenes  of  rural 
beauty  dear  to  her  memory. 

The  pen  sketch  of  Stevenson  forming  the  fron- 
tispiece was  drawn  by  Mr.  Eaton  in  a  few 
minutes  from  memory.  I  regret  to  say  that  it  is 
reproduced  from  a  reproduction,  the  original 
(owned  by  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure)  could  not  be 
found,  when  wanted,  Mr.  McClure  being  in 
France  at  the  time,  but  we  were  glad  to  obtain 
one  of  these  copies,  now  becoming  rare. 

I  have  never  seen  a  portrait  of  Stevenson 
that  equalled  his  appearance  that  day.     The  bas- 

27 


relief  by  Saiut  Gaudens  approximates  it  some- 
what in  ethereal  thinness,  but  the  verve,  the 
glow,  the  vital  spark,  are  lacking  even  in  that. 

It  has  always  been  a  satisfaction  to  me  that 
our  meeting  was  on  an  occasion  when  his  illness 
was  least  apparent.  My  memory  of  his  face  has 
nothing  of  that  pain-worn  expression  so  often 
seen  in  photographs. 

The  afternoon  of  the  day  we  received  his  mes- 
sage, I  caught  a  glimpse  of  him  at  a  distance 
from  my  window.  He  was  coming  up  from  the 
Inlet,  w^here,  no  doubt,  he  had  gone  to  take  a 
plunge.  There  was  a  briskness  about  his  move- 
ments that  seemed  like  the  unconscious  enjoy- 
ment of  sound  health,  and  in  appearance  he  cer- 
tainly was  as  romantic  a  figure  as  any  of  his  own 
characters.  Whenever  I  read  "In  the  High- 
lands," I  see  him  as  he  appeared  at  that  mo- 
ment, treading  through  a  maze  of  bright  sabatia 
and  sweet  clover,  the  mental  picture,  as  it  were, 
becoming  a  part  of  that  beautiful  and  touching 
poem: 

In  the  highlands,  in  the  country  places, 
Where  the  old  plain  men  have  rosy  faces, 
And  the  young  fair  maidens  quiet  eyes; 
Where  essential  silence  cheers  and  blesses, 
And  for  ever  in  the  hill-recesses 
Her  more  lovely  music  broods  and  dies. 

O  to  mount  again  where  erst  I  haunted; 
Where  the  old  red  hills  are  bird-enchanted, 
And  the  low  green  meadows  bright  with  sward; 
And  when  even  dies,  the  million-tinted. 
And  the  night  has  come,  and  planets  glinted, 
Lol  the  valley  hollow,  lamp-bestarred. 

28 


O  to  dream,  O  to  awake  and  wander 
There,  and  with  delight  to  take  and  render, 
Through  the  trance  of  silence,  quiet  breath; 
Lo!  for  there,  among  the  flowers  and  grasses, 
Only  the  mightier  movement  sounds  and  passes; 
Only  winds  and  rivers,  life  and  death. 

I  felt  the  poetry  of  the  day  more  poignantly 
as  the  hour  for  parting  approached,  and  when 
the  sun  began  to  wane,  I  went  out  on  the  lawn 
to  see  the  place  under  the  spell  of  the  lengthened 
shadows  and  the  mellow  sun-rays  that  turn  the 
tree-trunks  to  burnished  gold.  This  has  always 
been  my  favorite  hour,  this  charmed  hour  before 
sunset,  when  we  can  almost  feel  the  earth's 
movement  under  our  feet  —  an  hour  that  tran- 
scends in  poetry  anything  that  can  be  imagined 
by  the  finite  mind. 

I  walked  up  and  down  under  the  cedars  bor- 
dering the  river,  to  quiet  my  emotion.  It  was 
there,  too,  under  the  cedars,  that  a  remark  of 
Mr.  Eaton's,  in  describing  to  me  his  first  meet- 
ing with  Stevenson,  flashed  across  my  memory: 
"He  combined  the  face  of  a  boy  with  the  dis- 
tinguished bearing  of  a  man  of  the  world. ' ' 

And  I  thought,  as  I  saw  him  then,  merrily  re- 
calling the  scenes  and  escapades  of  student  life, 
"How  well  the  distinguished  man  of  the  world 
had  succeeded  in  keeping  the  heart  of  a  boy!" 

A  passage  in  Mr.  Low's  book,  "A  Chronicle 
of  Friendships,"  that  recalls  that  day  most 
vividly,  is  this:  "Stevenson  never  once  ex- 
cused himself  from  our  company  on  the  plea  of 
having  work  to  do."     For  so  it  was  with  us; 

29 


he  seemed  to  have  no  cares  or  preoccupations, 
but  to  be  content  to  be  there,  enjoying  the  con- 
versation and  the  pleasantness  of  the  passing 
hour. 

I  had  a  cosy  quarter  of  an  hour  with  his  moth- 
er after  my  walk,  and  off  by  ourselves,  in  a  cor- 
ner, away  from  interruption,  she  spoke  of  her 
son's  childhood.  In  her  eyes,  he  was  still  the 
"bonnie  wee  laddie"  who  scouted  about  in  his 
make-believe  worlds  among  the  chairs  and  tables 
in  the  drawing-room  while  she  entertained  her 
friends,  and  we  repeated  bits  from  ''A  Child's 
Garden  of  Verses." 

I  think  that  if  there  is  any  clue  to  the  char- 
acter of  a  great  man  we  must  look  to  his  mother. 
Mrs.  Stevenson  embodied  the  idea  of  her  son's 
peculiar  charm;  there  was  the  same  triumphal 
youthfulness,  and  her  cheeks  were  round  and 
rosy  like  a  ripe  apple. 

I  think  of  the  mother  now,  after  so  many  years, 
as  the  crowning  influence  of  the  day,  quiet  and 
reticent,  but  always  felt,  and  honored  by  all  as 
became  the  mother  of  our  welcome  guest. 

In  her  letters,  written  in  the  Marquesas  to  her 
sister  in  Scotland,  she  carries  out  this  impres- 
sion of  habitual  freshness  of  spirit,  and  her 
humor  is  subtle  and  optimistic :  ' '  Nothing  gives 
me  more  pleasure  or  a  better  appetite  than  an 
obstacle  overcome."  She  shows  herself  the  life 
of  "The  Silver  Ship,"  as  the  people  of  Fakarava 
dubbed  the  Casco,  and  never  a  word  of  criticism 
or  complaint  is  penned  at  any  inconvenience  or 
annoyance  endured  by  the  way.     Indeed,   one 

30 


mangels  at  her  tranquillity  in  the  midst  of  so 
many  complications  —  just  as  one  wondered  at 
the  simplicity  of  Queen  Victoria  in  her  diary. 
One  of  the  chief  delights  in  the  perusal  of  these 
letters  is  the  questions  they  project  into  the 
mind  of  the  reader.  Is  it  a  style,  a  native  virtue, 
a  mannerism,  a  fad,  or  what? 

For  example,  she  never  suspects  that  the 
French  man-o'-war  in  one  of  the  bays  may  ac- 
count for  some  of  the  good  behavior  of  the  na- 
tives, or  that  their  bounty  in  cocoanuts  and 
bread-fruit  may  be  tendered  with  an  eye  to  the 
novelties  to  be  had  in  exchange,  but  accepts  all 
in  good  faith,  as  part  of  their  native  generosity. 

And  what  a  joy  it  is  to  see  her  taking  holy 
communion  with  these  people,  so  lately  reclaimed 
from  cannabalism,  and  taking  the  ceremony  au 
grand  serieux"!  Thus,  a  missionary  within,  a 
warship  without,  the  amenities  of  religion  and 
society  are  enjoyed  to  the  full. 

One  lays  down  these  letters  and  laughs,  many 
a  time,  where  no  laughter  was  intended.  Cer- 
tainly, she  was  a  good  mixer  as  well  as  the  born 
mother  of  a  genius. 

Stevenson's  death  is  an  anomaly  no  less  pathe- 
tic than  his  life,  for  in  eluding  extinction  by 
consumption,  he  probably  achieved  a  still  earlier 
end  by  apoplexy.  I  had  the  account  from  Mrs. 
Low,  who  received  it  directly  from  ''Fanny"  by 
letter.  Mrs.  Stevenson  was  mixing  a  salad  of 
native  ingredients  of  which  Stevenson  was  very 
fond,  when  he  joined  her  in  the  kitchen,  com- 
plaining that  he  was  not  very  well,  and  sitting 

31 


down,  laid  his  head  on  her  shoulder,  where  in 
about  twenty  minutes  he  expired. 

I  said  at  the  beginning  that  I  was  not  disap- 
pointed in  the  personality  of  Stevenson,  but  it 
would  be  nearer  the  mark  to  say  that  my  antici- 
pations fell  far  short  of  the  reality. 

It  is  often  the  case  in  meeting  literary  cele- 
brities that  one  has  the  feeling  that  they  are  first 
authors,  and  after  that  men.  Rodin,  the  French 
sculptor,  focuses  this  idea  by  saying  that  ''many 
are  artists  at  the  expense  of  some  qualities  of 
manhood."  With  Stevenson  one  was  clearly  in 
the  presence  of  a  man,  and  after  that  the  scholar 
and  the  gentleman. 

Was  it  not  this  fine  distinction  that,  in  spite 
of  woolen  shirt  and  a  third-class  transportation, 
awoke  the  suspicions  of  his  companions  of  the 
steerage,  that  prompted  the  already  quoted  re- 
mark, ' '  You  are  not  one  of  us  ? " 

And  on  that  memorable  journey  across  the 
plains,  seeking  the  woman  of  his  choice,  re- 
solved, though  penniless  and  unknown,  to  make 
her  his  wife  in  spite  of  every  obstacle,  the  truth 
that  the  frailty  of  the  body  is  no  criterion  for 
the  strength  of  the  spirit  is  well  brought  out. 
It  was,  in  fact,  this  quality  of  initiative  that 
constituted  his  chief  charm  —  the  quality  that, 
above  all  others,  made  us  so  spontaneous  in  his 
presence  and  so  proud  of  his  achievement. 

We  knew  that  we  were  seeing  him  at  his  best, 
surrounded  by  his  old  friends,  and  with  the  light 
of  the  memory  of  his  youthful  ambitions  on  his 
face.     We  knew,  too,  that  the  parting  would  be 

32 


a  life-long  one,  and  that  we  would  never  look 
upon  his  like  again.  This  regret  each  knew  to 
be  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  the  others,  but  when 
the  good-byes  began,  we  made  no  sign  that  it 
was  to  be  more  than  the  absence  of  a  day. 

Nevertheless,  the  tensity  of  the  last  moments 
of  parting  was  keenly  felt.  Stevenson  had 
planned  to  spend  his  last  night  at  Wainwright 's, 
and  Lloyd  Osbourne  was  to  row  him  across  the 
river.  Mr,  Eaton  and  I  went  down  to  the  river- 
bank  to  see  them  off  and  to  wave  our  last  adieux. 

The  rumble  of  carriage-wheels  in  the  distance, 
and  the  reverberations  of  footsteps  and  voices  on 
the  old  wooden  bridge  grew  fainter  and  died 
away,  before  the  little  boat  was  pushed  off ;  and 
then,  these  two  friends,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
and  Wyatt  Eaton,  both  at  the  zenith  of  their  life 
and  powers,  and  both  hovering  so  closely  on  the 
brink  of  eternity,  sent  their  last  messages  to  each 
other,  across  the  distance,  until  the  little  boat 
had  glided  away,  on  the  ebb-tide,  a  mere  speck 
in  the  gray  transparency  of  the  twilight. 


33 


FATE  OF  THE  CASCO 

There  are  ships  that,  like  certain  people,  seem 
created  for  an  unusual  and  distinguishing  des- 
tiny, and  are  unable  long  to  survive  the  destruc- 
tion of  those  peculiar  conditions  that  have  given 
them  their  dominating  qualities,  animation  and 
color.  Mr.  Francis  Dickie  of  Vancouveur,  B.  C, 
has  described  with  a  vivid  pen  the  later  adven- 
tures and  slow  foundering  of  the  Casco. 

This  gentleman  has  kindly  given  me  permis- 
sion to  reprint  it  here.  Our  sympathy  goes  out 
to  the  beautiful  yacht  in  her  lonely  buffetings 
and  chill  decay,  but  though  stricken  and  van- 
ished, we  know  that  she  will  live  long  in  romance 
and  in  song  as  ''The  Silver  Ship." 


34 


FATE  OF  THE  CASCO 

by 

Francis  Dickie 

Forty  miles  from  Nome,  Alaska,  breaking 
under  the  Arctic  winter  on  the  shores  of  bleak 
King  Island,  lies  the  skeleton  of  a  wrecked  top- 
mast schooner. 

Early  in  June,  1919,  a  small  crew  of  adven- 
turous spirits  had  turned  her  nose  out  through 
the  Behring  Sea,  headed  for  the  Lena  River  and 
Anadyn  —  and  gold.  She  was  small  and  old, 
this  yacht,  but  what  are  thirty-three  years  when 
a  craft  has  the  proper  tradition  for  daring,  haz- 
ardous adventure? 

September  storms  swept  upon  the  Casco, 
pounding  her  teak  sides  with  unfamiliar  North- 
ern blasts.  Fog,  cold,  night  —  and  she  lay  shud- 
dering on  the  rocks,  snow-beaten,  ice-broken, 
abandoned  by  her  crew. 

So  ships  pass  and  become  smooth  driftwood 
on  scattered  beaches.  But  sometimes  the  magic 
of  long  adventure  will  gather  around  an  aban- 
doned hull,  and  form  a  rich  memory  to  tempt  the 
eternal  wanderlust  of  man.  What  is  an  old 
ship  but  a  floating  castle  built  upon  the  mem- 
ories of  the  men  who  have  helmed  her?  Some- 
times she  plies  the  same  dull  course  throughout 
her  existence.  Sometimes  she  chaiiges  trade 
with  surprising  chances.  So  it  was  with  the 
Casco  —  now  a  glittering  pleasure  yacht,  whim 
of  an  old  millionaire,  now  stripped  of  gaudy 

35 


trappings  and  bent  to  the  grim  will  of  seal 
hunter  and  opium  trader. 

In  the  opening-  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson's 
novel,  "The  Wrecker,"  with  red  ensign  waving, 
sailing  into  the  port  of  Tai-o-hae  in  the  Mar- 
quesas, the  Casco  takes  her  place  in  fiction.  But 
she  is  far  more  romantic  as  she  has  sailed  in  fact. 

"Winged  by  her  own  impetus  and  the  dying 
breeze,  the  Casco  skimmed  under  cliffs,  opened 
out  a  cove,  showed  us  a  beach  and  some  green 
trees,  and  flitted  by  again,  bowing  to  the  swell 
.  .  .  from  close  aboard  arose  the  bleating  of 
young  lambs;  a  bird  sang  on  the  hillside;  the 
scent  of  the  land  and  of  a  hundred  fruits  or  flow- 
ers flowed  forth  to  meet  us ;  and  presently ' '  — 

Presently  they  sailed  among  the  Isles  of 
Varien,  sunny  and  welcoming  in  the  South  Seas, 

Stevenson  wrote  this  in  the  cabin  of  the  Casco, 
in  the  summer  of  '88.  His  always  delicate  health 
had  broken  completely  under  the  San  Francisco 
climate.  Friends  had  urged  a  cruise  to  the 
South  Seas,  he  had  gladly  acquiesced,  and  looked 
around  for  a  ship.  There  was  a  subtle  romantic 
call  for  the  author  of  "Treasure  Island"  in  a 
voyage  on  a  ship  of  his  own  choosing  and  direc- 
tion under  the  soft  skies  of  the  tropics. 

The  Casco  had  been  built  by  an  eccentric  Cali- 
fornia millionaire.  Dr.  Merritt,  for  cruising 
along  the  coast,  and  no  money  had  been  spared 
in  her  fittings.  She  was  a  seventy-ton  fore-and- 
aft  schooner,  ninety-five  feet  long,  with  graceful 
lines,  high  masts,  white  sails  and  decks,  shiny 
brasswork,  and  a  gaudy  silk-hung  saloon.     She 

36 


was  not  perhaps  too  staunch  a  cruiser.  "Her 
cockpit  was  none  too  safe,  her  one  pump  was 
inadequate  in  size  and  almost  worthless;  the 
sail  plan  forward  was  meant  for  racing  and  not 
for  cruising ;  and  even  if  the  masts  were  still  in 
good  condition,  they  were  quite  unfitted  for 
hurricane  weather." 

Nevertheless,  negotiations  were  opened  with 
Dr.  Merritt.  That  gentleman  had  read  of  Stev- 
enson. He  had  conceived  him  as  an  erratic, 
irresponsible  soul  who  wrote  poetry  and  let 
everything  else  go  to  the  devil.  He'd  be  blamed, 
he  said,  if  he'd  let  any  scatter-brained  writer 
use  his  precious  yacht.  Finally,  a  meeting  be- 
tween the  two  was  effected;  and,  speedily 
charmed  by  Stevenson's  manner,  he  decided  to 
let  him  have  the  Casco.  Therefore,  with  Capt. 
Otis  as  skipper,  four  deck  hands,  "three  Swedes 
and  the  inevitable  Finn,"  and  a  Chinese  cook, 
the  Stevensons  sailed  June  28,  1888,  for  the 
Marquesas. 

Stevenson's  health  rapidly  improved  in  the 
first  weeks  of  the  voyage.  He  was  charmed  by 
the  Southern  islands  and  began  making  notes 
and  gathering  data  from  the  natives  for  later 
books.  He  wrote  parts  of  "The  Master  of  Bal- 
lantrae"  and  of  "The  Wrong  Box,"  and  spent 
much  of  his  time  studying  the  intricate  person- 
ality of  his  skipper,  whose  portrait  afterward 
appeared  in  the  pages  of  "The  Wrecker." 

After  months  of  idle  cruising,  it  was  discover. 
ed  that  the  Casco 's  masts  were  dangerously  rot- 
ten.    Repairs     were      immediately     necessary. 

37 


Meantime  Stevenson  became  less  and  less  well. 
"When  the  ship  was  again  in  commission  and 
took  them  to  Hawaii,  he  realized  the  impossbilty 
of  his  returning  to  America,  and,  sending  the 
Casco  back  to  San  Francisco,  started  upon  the 
exile  that  was  to  terminate  in  his  death. 

Thereafter,  the  Casco  changed  hands  frequent- 
ly, exploring  the  mysteries  of  seal-hunting, 
opium-smuggling,  coast-trading  and  gold-adven- 
ture, among  other  things.  In  the  early  nine- 
ties, she  was  known,  because  of  her  swiftness, 
quickness  and  ease  of  handling  at  the  wheel,  to 
be  the  best  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  ships  en- 
gaged in  the  extinction  of  the  pelagic  seal.  But 
when,  in  1898,  the  sealers  found  themselves  im- 
poverished by  their  own  ruthlessness,  the  Casco, 
her  decks  disfigured  with  blood  and  her  hold 
rotten  from  the  drip  of  countless  salty  pelts, 
was  discarded  and  left  to  rot  on  the  mud  flats  of 
Victoria.  Too  much  of  the  spirit  of  adventure, 
however,  lurked  in  the  tall  masts  of  the  Casco  to 
let  her  waste  away  to  such  an  ugly  ending. 
When  the  smuggling  of  Chinese  and  opium  was 
at  its  height,  up  and  down  the  coast  there  were 
whisperings  of  the  daring  work  of  the  smuggler 
Casco.  The  revenue  officers  knew  positively  that 
she  was  laden  with  illicit  Oriental  cargo,  and 
with  Chinese  immigrants;  but  she  escaped  them 
again  and  again,  her  old  speed  and  lightness 
returning.  Once,  however,  the  wind  failed  her, 
and  the  revenue  launch  hauled  alongside.  Search 
for  contraband  was  instituted ;  but  not  a  China- 
man appeared,  not  a  trace  of  opium.     Fooled! 

38 


The  Casco,  Just  Before  It  was  Wrecked  on 

KixG  Island 

Kind  permission  of  Mr.  L.   W.  I'edhose 


—  and  they  climbed  down  sheepishly  into  their 
launch.  Later  it  developed  that  while  the  rev- 
enue men  were  still  far  astern,  the  crew  had 
weighted  the  sixty  Chinamen  and  dumped  them 
overboard  along  with  the  opium! 

From  the  swift  romance  of  opium  running 
the  Casco  turned  drudge.  She  carried  junk  be- 
tween Victoria  and  Vancoucer;  she  was  a  train- 
ing ship  for  the  Boy  Sea  Scouts  of  Vancouver; 
she  was  a  coasting  trader  in  1917  when  the 
shipping  boom  gave  value  to  even  her  little 
hulk ;  and  in  between  times  she  lay  on  mud  flats. 

In  the  spring  of  1919  came  the  stories  of  gold 
in  Northern  Siberia.  With  high  hopes  of  for- 
tunes to  be  made,  the  Northern  Mining  and  Trad- 
ing Company  sprang  into  existence,  and  the 
Casco  was  chartered  to  dare  the  far  Northern 
seas  and  icy  gaps. 

So  she  died  at  sea,  as  all  good  ships  should, 
with  the  storm  at  her  back  and  the  mists  over 
her,  with  snow  as  a  shroud,  and  brooding  ice- 
bergs to  mourn.  She  lies  cold  and  stately,  with 
her  memories  of  tropical  splendor,  high  adven- 
ture, and  light  romance  —  this  little  ship  whose 
cabin  knew  Stevenson. 


39 


PORTRAITS  FROM  STEVENSON 

by 

George  Steele  Seymour 


41 


TEEASURE  ISLAND 

Jim  Hawkins,  Jim  Hawkins,  the  treasure  ship 's  a-sailing, 
The  lure  of  life  is  calling  us  beyond  the  shining  sea, 

The  distant  land  of  mystery  her  beauty  is  unveiling, 
And  shall  we  then  be  lagging  when  there's  work  for 
you  and  me? 

The  pirate  ship  is  on  the  main,  Jim  Hawkins,  Jim  Haw- 
kins, 
She  flies  the  Jolly  Eoger  and  there's  battle  in  her  prow, 
Then  shall  we  play  the  craven-heart  and  lurk  ashore,  Jim 
Hawkins, 
When  fortune  with  a  lavish  turn  is  waiting  for  us  now? 

Jim  Hawkins,  Jim  Hawkins,  the  pirate  crew  has  landed, 
With  guns  and  knives  between  their  teeth  they're  steal- 
ing on  the  prey. 
Then    let's    afoot    and    follow    them    and    catch    them 
bloody -handed  — 
When  life  and  joy  are  calling  us,  shall  we  bide  long 
away? 
Jim  Hawkins,  Jim  Hawkins! 


43 


ALAN  BRECK 

Is't  you,  Alan?     You  of  the  ready  sword 
And  nimble  feet,  and  keen,  courageous  eye, 
Quick  to  affront,  and  yet  more  quick  to  spy 

Auglit  that  might  touch  your  own  dear  absent  lordl 

Hero  and  clown!     How  it  sets  every  chord 
Athrill  to  see  your  feathered  hat  draw  nigh, 
And  all  your  brave,  fantastic  finery! 

Romance  no  stranger  picture  doth  afford. 

For  I  have  met  you  in  the  House  of  Fear, 

Have  watched  you  cross  the  torrent  of  Glencoe 
And  climbed  with  you  the  rugged  mountain-side. 
We  are  old  comrades,  and  I  hold  most  dear 
This  loyal  friend  and  yet  more  loyal  foe 
Who  bore  a  kingly  name  with  kingly  pride. 


44 


ELLIS  DUCKWORTH 

Was  there  a  rustle  of  the  leafy  bed? 

Heard  you  no  footstep  in  the  matted  grass? 

Down  the  deep  glade  where  fearsome  shadows  pass 
What  is  it  lurks  so  still?     What  secret  dread 
Troubles  the  tangled  branches  overhead? 

An  ye  be  foe  to  this  good  man,  alas! 

No  art  shall  save  you  though  ye  walk  in  brass. 
Swift  to  your  heart  shall  the  Black  Death  be  sped. 

The  woods  are  still  —  for  that  was  years  ago  — 
And  now  no  baleful  presence  haunts  the  glade, 
No  train-band  rules  the  highway  as  of  yore. 
Romance  is  dead.     Adventure,  too,  lies  low. 
Long  in  the  grave  is  Duckworth's  kingdom  laid, 
And  the  black  arrow  speeds  its  way  no  more. 


45 


SAINT  IVES 

Viseomte,  your  health.     Confusion  to  the  foe. 

The  noble  lord  your  uncle  —  bless  his  name ! 

And  may  your  wicked  captors  die  in  shame. 
I  kiss  your  hand;  I  kiss  your  forehead  —  so! 
The  castle  cliff  is  steep,  but  down  below 

Both  fortune  and  the  lady  Flora  wait. 

Oh,  you  will  meet  them,  I  anticipate, 
Your  hand  upon  your  heart,  and  bowing  low. 

The  stage-coach  lumbers  heavily  tonight. 

Its  wheels  sound  loudly  on  the  stony  flag. 

What's  that!     A  chest  of    florins  in  the  drag 
Gone!     And  the  rascally  postboy  taken  flight! 

Ah,  well,  God  send  him  a  dark  night,  and  we  .  . 

Your  health,  Saint  Ives,  in  sparkling  Burgundy. 


46 


PEINCE  FLOEIZEL 

Try  these  perfectos,  gentlemen.     The  flavour 

I  recommend.     A  smoke-royal.     With  white  v?ines 
You'll  find  them  fragrantest.     That  spicy  savour 

Comes  only  in  stock  from  the  Isle  of  Pines. 
Here  are  cigarettes,  Turkish  and  Egyptian, 

Such  as  no  other  merchant  has  to  sell, 
And  Trichinopoly  of  the  same  description 

I  smoked  vfhen  I  was  called  Prince  Florizel. 

That  was  before  I  stooped  to  trade  plebeian, 
Left  my  exalted  home  and  wandered  far, 

Emptied  my  plate  at  danger's  feast  Protean, 
Beside  the  well  of  wisdom  broke  my  jar. 

Till  Louis  looked  from  out  the  empyrean 
And  in  the  dust  of  Mayfair  found  a  star. 


47 


THE  EBB  TIDE 

Green  palm-tops  bending  low  by  silent  seas 

Like  heads  in  prayer  — 
Life's   turmoil   nor   its   multiplicities 

Are    there. 

But  only  calms  and  potencies  hold  sway 

That  will  not  be  denied, 
Come  with  the  surge  of  dawn  and  drift  away 

With  the  ebb  tide. 


48 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


MAY  1 6  1983 


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